BEAUTY: Painting--Zachary Johnson

I have recently become more and more enamored of cityscapes in art. Zachary Johnson has spent time in many cities across the U.S. and his lonely, evocative paintings show an intimate knowledge of the shapes and colors of an urban landscape. Whether seen through the rain-soaked window of a cab or from a drenched sidewalk or from the banks of a river, his breathtaking night portraits of city lights and slick skylines gloriously border on the abstract.


Top to bottom: Lost In Some City 5; Lost In Some City 6; Lost In Some City 7; Lost In Some City 8; Lost In Some City 10; Lost In Some City 11; Lost In Some City; N.Y.

http://zucherman.tumblr.com/

French Lesson

Pour tous les gens qui ne parlent pas français, votre première leçon commence maintenant.

It's complicated...

And the season begins...

And to get us in the mood, here is, back by popular demand, the loveliest and saddest Christmas song ever written... the beautiful "December Song (I Dreamed of Christmas)" by George Michael.

Get better, George...

"Merry Christmas
Merry Christmas
May your every New Year dream come true

Sweet December song
The melody that saved me
On those less than silent nights
When snow would fall upon my bed
White sugar from Jesus
And take me to the day
She could always smile
The Virgin Child would always show, you see
Just to save me
(Just to save me)

There was always Christmas time
To wipe the year away
I guess that morning they’d decided
That the war would have to wait

There was always Christmas time
Jesus came to stay
I could believe in peace on Earth
And I could watch TV all day
So I dreamed of Christmas

Maybe since you’ve gone
I went a little crazy
God knows they can see (the child)
But the snow that falls upon my bed
That loving I needed
Falls every single day
For each and every child
The Virgin smiles for all to see
But you kept her from me

There was always Christmas time
To wipe the year away
I guess that morning they’d decided
That the war would have to wait

There was always Christmas time
Jesus came to stay
I could believe in peace on Earth
And I could watch TV all day
And so I dreamed of Christmas
Yes, I dreamed like you

Merry Christmas
Merry Christmas
May your every New Year dream come true"

http://www.georgemichael.com/

Home For the Holidays

The Chromatic Typewriter

Tyree Callahan, located in Washington state, has invented something he calls The Chromatic Typewriter: he took a 1937 Underwood Standard typewriter, removed its type elements, and replaced them with pieces of oil stick. When the keys are pressed, it produces color instead of a character.

This fantastic, whimsical creation has got me thinking all kinds of wild thoughts about civilizations that communicate in color, "writing" and recording with this marvelous machine. I know hummingbirds and insects navigate the world by color... what if there is an advanced species of hummingbird-like creatures on another planet? And this is how they "write?"


http://www.tyreecallahanpaintings.com/splash
http://tyreecallahan.blogspot.com/

BEAUTY: Photography--Ellie Davies

British fine art photographer Ellie Davies has a penchant for capturing scenes that are steeped in a kind of eerie foreboding. Her Magic Realist photos are set at twilight (in fact, one of her photographic series is called "The Gloaming," an ancient word I adore) or in the dark of night. We see shots of nature, suspiciously empty clearings at the edge of impenetrable black, or people alone at night, being watched...

It all deliciously speaks to folk lore and fairy tales of getting lost in the woods at dusk, or urban folk lore where lone figures walk into a park or dark, abandoned building and never come out.


Top to bottom: After Dark 4; I Always Knew You'd Come Back 1; Silent, Dark, and Deep 2; The Gloaming 1; Vantage Point 1; Vantage Point 5; Vantage Point 8

http://www.elliedavies.co.uk/

BEAUTY: Installation--James Turrell

James Turrell at the Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg in Wolfsburg, Germany, 2009/2010.

http://rodencrater.com/james.html
http://www.kunstmuseum-wolfsburg.de/

BEAUTY: Painting--Lukasz Pazera

Polish artist, painter, and animator Lukasz Pazera has created a series of paintings based on both the concept of The Zone from the Russian science fiction novel "Roadside Picnic" by the Strugatsky Brothers (and made into a highly atmospheric film by Andrei Tarkovsky called "Stalker" which I reviewed here), and the nuclear disaster at Chernobyl. He captures the empty, disquieting landscapes of the abandoned alien visitation site from the novel, as well as the ruins of the city of Prypiat and the surrounding environs.


Top to bottom: Postcard From The Zone III; Postcard From The Zone IV; Carriage; Smell of Rain I; Forest

http://lukaszpazera.com/
http://postcardsfromthezone.com/
http://lukpazera.blogspot.com/

If you'd like to preview and then order a book of all the prints from this series, visit:
http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/1290773

BEAUTY: Man--Michael Fassbender

Michael Fassbender.

His newest film, "Shame," is out today in limited theatrical release in the U.S.



*sigh*

http://michael-fassbender-online.net/

"A Spell To Succeed In The Corporate World"

A Spell To Succeed In the Corporate World

Out of my way,
out of my way,
out of my way.
Hope you fall down and die.

©JEF 1994

Tusen

Restaurant Tusen is perched on the ski slopes by the Helags and Skars mountains in Ramundberget, Sweden. This gorgeous building designed by architects Ulla Alberts and Hans Murman is faced with locally harvested birch logs on its northern face. The southern face is open and serves as the entrance for weary skiers looking for respite, sustenance, and grog! The logs keep the snow and give the building the sense that it is rising up from the snow, embedded into the mountainside itself...

In 2009, Restaurant Tusen was a category winner in the World Architecture Festival. Read more about it in the World Buildings Directory here.

http://www.ramundberget.se/vinter/

Owls

R.I.P. Ken Russell

Ken Russell, filmmaker, provocateur, artist, died November 27, 2011 at the age of 84. He leaves behind a catalog of stunning, controversial, beautiful--and some not so good--films. The world is a better place for his vision and passion for the extreme and the fantastical.

Below: Scenes from the film adaptation of The Who's rock opera "Tommy"
starring Roger Daltrey, Ann-Margret, and Oliver Reed, directed by Ken Russell.

Below: Scenes from the hallucinatory "Altered States"
starring William Hurt, directed by Ken Russell.

Below: scenes from the infamous naked "wrestling" scene between Oliver Reed and Alan Bates
for Russell's adaptation of D.H. Lawrence's classic novel "Women In Love."

"Tommy" was, for me personally, a highly influential film on my development as a human, an actor, a writer, an artist, and believe it or not, as an interior designer.